Better to Move by Foot or Slidewalk: Post-Automobile Environments in Asimov’s The Caves of Steel and Clarke’s The City and the Stars

Thumbnail Image
Date
2021-06-01
Authors
Withers, Jeremy
Major Professor
Advisor
Committee Member
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Authors
Person
Withers, Jeremy
Associate Professor
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Organizational Unit
Journal Issue
Is Version Of
Versions
Series
Department
English
Abstract

This essay focuses on Asimov’s The Caves of Steel and Clarke’s The City and the Stars, two works published during the 1950s that both largely abolish the automobile as a stern rebuke to that decade’s enthusiastic acceptance of the car. However, these works hold differing ideas regarding desirable and effective alternatives to cars, for Caves of Steel favors machine-enhanced transportation in the form of slidewalks (a vast network of moving sidewalks), whereas City and the Stars privileges the simple act of walking. This essay demonstrates, therefore, how Asimov’s and Clarke’s privileging of different alternatives to automobility also reveals disagreements on two important questions: to what degree technology and human bodies should intertwine, and whether collectivism or individualism should hold greater priority.

Comments

This accepted article is published as Withers, J., Better to Move by Foot or Slidewalk: Post-Automobile Environments in Asimov’s The Caves of Steel and Clarke’s The City and the Stars. Extrapolation, 2021 62(2);111-131. DOI: 10.3828/extr.2021.7. Posted with permission.

Description
Keywords
Citation
DOI
Copyright
Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 UTC 2021
Collections